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Chapter Thirty-Four
Marrying Marco had taught me that life could change in an instant. But when I walked into the doctor’s office, I truly hadn’t expected to learn that I was pregnant. I must have conceived the first night that Marco and I had sex, which meant that I was still very early in my pregnancy.
“You okay?” Alex asked.
I’d done everything that I could think of to leave him behind. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, or what I was going to say to Marco about everything, but I knew that I wanted time to think about it. Alex being there threw a wrench into all of that.
“I’m fine,” I said. I grabbed my jacket and wrapped it around me. My hands were shaky as I tried to tie the sash. Alex reached out and did it for me. “Thanks,” I muttered.
My conversation with Sasha yesterday had made me desperately want to be a mother, but I had thought that I would have more time. Time to talk to Marco. Time to plan. Instead, I was one month into a marriage to a man who enjoyed fucking me but didn’t love me, and I was carrying his child.
Alex was silent as we walked out of the posh OBGYN office. I should have known that Sasha wasn’t going to go to some hole in the wall. I’d been in a lot of doctors offices over the years, and none had been as nice as the one we were leaving.
When we finally got outside, I allowed myself to take large gulps of the cool winter air. I closed my eyes allowing it to calm my hot face. The doctor’s office had been lavish, but the air was too warm and too sweet, and it was making my nausea increase, and my head spin.
“Ivy?” Alex asked.
I turned to look at him. He was staring at me, his eyes wide. “Do you want to talk?
I snorted. My head was all over the place. I couldn’t believe that this was where my life had ended up. It felt surreal. I was twenty-one, and in nine months I was going to be a mother, and I was so worried about what that might mean for my husband that I couldn’t even enjoy it.
“Talk about what?” I asked.
Alex gave me an incredulous look. He shifted from foot to foot, and I knew that he was uncomfortable. Alex had always been kind to me, too kind, and I had wondered why. He was married, and while I didn’t know anything about his wife, he didn’t strike me as the man who would cheat on his wife.
“Why do you even care, Alex?”
He looked taken aback by the question. His eyes were wide, and his posture stiffened. “It’s my job to protect you,” he said.
I shook my head. “Bullshit. There’s something that you aren’t telling me, and I want to know what it is.”
Alex’s countenance changed quickly. He turned into the Blanchi man that I knew him to be. His eyes hardened as he looked at me, and the muscles in his neck tensed. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Whatever,” I muttered, and started to walk away. “I’m not interested in hearing your lies.”
Marco believed that Alex was in love with me, but something in my gut told me that there was something else to the way that Alex treated me. He’d told me as much. He said that I reminded him of someone he’d known. Someone he couldn’t protect.
“Ivy…” Alex groaned. “Can you just tell me what the doctor said?”
I knew that I shouldn’t. Marco should be the first person I talked to about my pregnancy. Whether he wanted a baby or not, he was not going to be happy if he knew I’d confided in my cousin before him.
But I was freaking out, and I needed to talk to someone. Someone who was not Sasha. Sasha believed that everything was roses and sugar, but I knew that life wasn’t so pleasant for most people. Things didn’t always work out for the best.
“I’m pregnant,” I said. It was the first time that I said those words aloud, and it felt surreal. “I’m pregnant with a child who is going to be expected to be the enforcer to the mafia.” I chuckled at the thought. But it wasn’t a happy life. It was a life that signaled an impending meltdown.
Alex looked at me with sad eyes. He walked forward slightly, but I moved away. “I need to get out of here,” I said. I looked around the street for an escape. Luckily, we were in a quiet, residential area.
“I can do that. I can get you home.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to go back there.” I felt cornered like a scared cat. My anxiety skyrocketed as I thought about what being pregnant meant. I’d been able to ignore the realities of the mafia for myself, but now that I was going to be bringing a child into that, I knew that I couldn’t continue to be oblivious.
I hadn’t been given a choice, not really. If I had, I wouldn’t have married Marco. I had feelings for him. I couldn’t ignore that reality, but I also knew that I wouldn’t have lived a life of danger. Most of Marco’s family were dead, and I didn’t want that for my unborn child.
“I need to get out of here. I need to go.”
I started walking towards nowhere. I wanted to get away. Away from all of it.
“Ivy.” I could hear the sound of Alex’s boot away from me as I started walking towards downtown. I didn’t have a plan, except to get away. Marco and I were married, which meant I couldn’t testify against him, and Maksim didn’t seem to view me as a threat.
